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CASS1US MARCELLUS CLAY, 



JUNE 28, 1887. 







SEP 5 lobb 






ADDRESS 



OF 



Cassius Marcellus Clay, 

»? 



FOR THE CLASS 1832, 



BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF YALE UNIVERSITY, 



June 28, 1887. 



THIRD EDITION. 






Note. — This edition of five hundred copies each, with an 
equal correspondence with the leading minds of the nation, 
and over a million distributed (gratis) through the press, do 
not satisfy the demand. 

Ingersoll, Fisk, Lucy Stone, Henry George, and John Most 
— Infidelity, Prohibition, Woman Suffrage, and Nihilism — 
all lead down to anarchy and the death of the Eepublic. 



C. M. C. 



White Hall, Ky., August 1, 1889. 



'lll l'sTEREOTYPERSAMPPRINTERSl lll- 



■ 



ADDEESS. 



(From the Nexo York Times, June 29, 1887.) 



Cassius M. Clay made an eloquent address, in which he 
discussed the Prohibition, Labor, and Woman Suffrage 
questions. He said : 

Gentlemen Alumni : 

I began here my public career, and perhaps shall 
here end it. My experience covers fifty-five years, 
— more than twice the average of human lives. My 
father, Green Clay, was born in 1757 ; our joint lives 
extend over one hundred and thirty years of history. 
With such antecedents I cannot confine my remi- 
niscences to the Class of 1832, nor even to Yale. I 
glance at those great events in which Yale has her 
share, but which belong to the human race. G-od 
governs the cosmos by universal laws, and the cen- 
tral one is progress. Man, having many things in 
common with all the fauna, is alone in his creative 
power. The inferior animals exhaust the products 
of nature; man increases them. This one hundred 
and thirty years is unrivalled in its developments : 

3 



4 ADDRESS. 

steam-power, electric forces, the cotton gin, the 
harvesting machines, the improved plough, threshing 
machines, and all that, culminating in the railroad 
and engine, and the iron steamships. All the 
sciences and all the arts move along pari passu, and 
religion, morals, and government are modified by a 
higher intelligence. Religion has as never before 
been subjected to reason, science, and discussion, but 
has lost none of its hold upon the judgment and 
affections of mankind. Christianity still holds its 
supremacy as the truest system of ethics. Itself, 
being the same central law of self-denial which also 
lies at the base of all human progress, is one with 
civilization. From these flow the corollary that a 
republic is the best of all governments, — the greatest 
good to the greatest number. So, vox populi vox Dei 
est. In the period named the greatest event is the 
overthrow of personal slavery in the United States, 
the foremost of the nations in present and prospec- 
tive power. Dynasties, governments, and religions 
have risen, flourished, and died, but slavery remained. 
It fell to our lot to accomplish more than all who 
went before us. In all the revolutions heroes were 
made, but highest in the Temple of Fame stands 
immortal the name of Lincoln. In a free State 
party names and principles are the pulsations of the 
highest life and aspirations of the people. The Re- 
publican and Democratic parties, of similar import 
in nomenclature, and near approximation in princi- 
ples and policies, will not be here considered. The 
three others — the Prohibtion, the Labor, and the 
"Woman Suffrage parties — are worthy of thought. 

Temperance is well; temperance in eating and 
tenperance in drinking; temperance in all things. 



\ 



ADDRESS. 5 

But sumptuary laws are forbidden by all the wisest 
apothegms of the greatest thinkers. The world is 
governed too much. Power is always stealing from 
the many to the few. Temperance, like all the 
virtues, comes best by moral rule and suasion. The 
Church, the Sunday-school, the family, the com- 
mon school, must teach temperance. Drunkenness, 
like other crimes, must be punished by fine, im- 
prisonment, exile, and death, if need be. But it is 
illogical to punish one for what another does. Stim- 
ulants are the good gifts of Deity; as medicines 
they stand against all the other thousand drugs of 
the shop. I will not by my own consent yield up 
the right to use but not abuse them. Poverty makes 
more drunkards than whiskey. The abolition of 
saloons is a question of expediency only. 

The Labor party is more securely based upon the 
right to be. Radical socialism and anarchy are 
justly outside of the pale of toleration and must 
stand forever as crimes. Labor and capital are one 
in most respects. The healthy, well-developed man 
is capital; he stands at times worth in person a 
thousand dollars, and with a thousand dollars more 
invested in education he has a capital of more than 
two thousand dollars. So labor is capital in possi- 
bility, and gold and silver, etc., capital in fact. Labor 
must then be allowed a fair hearing, — must be repre- 
sented by a separate party if it thinks best. It must 
be protected in its rights. In legislation, being the 
weaker party, it must be placed upon an open and 
fair field in the race of life, and then goverment aid 
ceases, — and the devil take the hindmost. 

Yes, Labor has its grievances. The public lands 
should not be allowed to foreigners ; nor to railroad 



6 ADDRESS. 

corporations ; nor to the churches ; nor to any other 
combinations of Capital, save for the plant necessary 
to combined industries and moral and intellectual 
culture. Laborers are entitled to equal taxation, to 
one ballot and a fair count, to an honest currency 
of gold, silver, and paper dollars of equal value. It 
is not to be plundered by discrimination and unequal 
freight. The railroads must be owned by the Gov- 
ernment, valued and paid for at a fair price ; it will 
be a great sum, but it will be the price of liberty. 
They are entitled to the common school for the 
safety of the State. But the rights of property in 
lands and severalty in other things is the base of all 
civilization and must be held forever inviolable. 

There should be a State militia, an efficient police, 
and a national standing army for the suppression of 
all discontents. In France the majority of the people 
being land-holders makes the republic secure. When 
a majority ceases to love it, a democracy can no 
longer exist. But, after all, we do not want a strong 
government, but a strong people. 

Woman suffrage is the most serious question now 
pending. The family is the base of civilization. It 
cannot exist without a head ; one will is the neces- 
sity of unity. If two men ride of a horse, one must 
need to ride before. Either the man or woman must 
be that leader. Eunning through all animal life, the 
male is, with rare exceptions, the absolute ruler. 
The male is superior in size, mind, and courage. 
The barn-fowl male is about one-third larger ; he is 
armed with spurs, his bill is crooked and strong for 
offence and defence, his neck — the most vulnerable 
part — is clothed with long thick feathers, and like 
the tough and wrinkled hide of the bull-dog, and the 



ADDRESS. 7 

mane of the lion, is a defence. None of these are 
found on the females. So man is larger than woman, 
with hair covering his throat, as in the cases named, 
for a shield. So in the nervous, vascular, and mus- 
cular systems man stands superior for offence and 
defence. Physically, then, he is the leader. Men- 
tally he holds the same rank. In all the varied fields 
of intellectual effort no woman has ever held the 
first place. And so in courage, in self-possession, 
and judgment, and all the moral qualities which 
support command, the man is the superior. The 
question then remains, Does the right of woman 
suffrage overthrow the natural leadership of the 
family ? I think it does. Politics leads to the most 
intense hatreds and bloody feuds. If the woman 
agrees with the man, her suffrage is useless. If she 
does not, the difference is fatal to the family. 

I do not say that man is superior in all things. 
One sex is the supplement of the other ; and so the 
physical, moral, and intellectual developments are in 
some sense opposite, and in that is mutual attrac- 
tion. A bearded woman and a beardless man are 
monstrosities. And the sum of their faculties of all 
kinds may be admitted to be equal, but their spheres 
are different, and man's is the sphere of leadership 
and government. 

In the exercise of the suffrage all the bulwarks 
which the wisdom of all the ages has placed around 
woman's virtue are levelled at a blow. The luxuries 
of conquering Pome corrupted the whole people. 
Then the chastity of woman was lost. Then came 
anarchy, conquest, and slavery. Catiline first vio- 
lated the sacred scenes of the Eleusinian mysteries 
before he attempted the assassination of the senate 



8 ADDRESS. 

and the destruction of the republic. Eighteen hun- 
dred years have not effaced the ruins of woman's fall. 
The Republican, Democratic, Labor, and Prohibition 
parties may flourish and may fade- but woman suf- 
frage gained, all is lost — like the dead worlds, it 
may be — forever. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



027 273 666 2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



027 273 666 2 



Hollinger 

pH 8.5 

Mill Run F3-1719 



